Los Angeles daily herald., 1887-10-16


ously made provision for vessels to
meet them at the Pacific terminus
taking his chances, like ourselves, of
finding disengaged shipping on this
side OF the continent. As luck would
have it, the Association had not been
many weeks in Realejo before two un-
chartered vessels arrived. One was
the brig Laura Anne, the other an old
coasting bark. the name of which es-
capes me at the moment. | secured
passage on the Laura Anne, and we
we're soon ready for sea. The greatest
difficulty we had was to secure water
for the voyage. As over one hundred
men would sail on the little brig, it be-
came a serious question how to pro-
vide vessels in which to carry the
large amount of water they would re-
quire. Casks were not to be had,
so it was determined to make
square tanks out of Spanish cedar
The tanks were made and towed well
up into the Realejo river where the
water was fresh, filed and sealed, and
then towed down to the vessel. We
sailed away well supplied, as we sup
posed, with the indispensable ele-
ment. But-phomme propose, ct Dieu
dispose-before we had reached the
coast of Mexico we found that our
water supply was excruciatingly def
cient. We had met with bad weather
and contrary winds-having run the
gauntlet for five days Of tremendous
squalls, and constant environment
e -, thn ftt11f of 10 N
tepec. When the weather quieted we
found, to our aAazement, that nearly
all the tanks had burst their sides
from the smashing of the water in
them during the protracted storm.
We were at once put on short allow
ance of water. Then it was found
that our provisions were short. For
twenty-five days we managed to sub
sist on pint OF water little weave
ly rice and Il buiseuit a day. / tell
you, boys, it was tight papers, and
many night did | go on deck and
cool my parched and fevered lips by
putting them to the mast and licking
the dew that adhered to them.'
"Avast, there, shipmate," cried
the west co ,st of Africa Captain at this
point. "Your realistic description OF
how you suffered for the want OF
water has made my throat as dry as a
powder horn. Suppose we splice the
main brace, and then let the pioneer
proceed with his yarn"
The Ironclad Four OF course hailed
this proposition with an affirmative
LETS" and the raconteur himself
said that he had been splitting five.
cent pieces for the last half hour, and
thought that his inside scuppers
would be the better of washing
down.
Having poured out and disposed of
their libations to the merry god, the
Forty-niner resumed the thread OF his
narrative:
1--WE were off the coast of Lower Cal
ifornia. The trades were directly in
our teeth, and the Laura Anne couldn't
sail within fifteen points of the
wind. With that old flat mountain,
which looks as ii it had been leveled
off by real estate dealers, in the days
when giants were in the business, to
make eligible sites for the villas of mil
lionaire Titans-I say, with that
round, cut off mountain in view, we
would start on tack and go out two
or three hundred miles, expect
ing on the return slant to find
ourselves somewhere near the Golden
Gate. what would be our disgust
to bring up dead abreast Of the
same old landmark we had left weeks
before We tried the experiment two
or three times with the same success.
The last time we hove in sight of the
Internal mountain, Jim Stillman, the
supercargo, announced that there was
lust enough water left to fill the small
everyday barrel we kept on deck.
This brought us to a serious council OF
war, the result of which was that we
sent committee aft to tell the Captain
to run the brig close to shore, where
we would send the small boat on an
exploring expedition for water and
provisions. 1t was useless to try to
beat up the coast with our brig. a
storm might drive us out at sea at any
moment, and our case would then be
hopeless. Besides, we were becoming
skeletons very rapidly, and if we had
to die of starvation and thirst, we
preferred to do 50 on dry land.
The Captain consented, and ran the
Laura Anne into ans indentation
marked on the old Spanish maps as
the Bay of San Francisco. | thought
this curious coincidence, and told
the boys we could brag that we had
gone to San Francisco anyhow,
whether we ever reached Upper Cali
fornia or not. Now comes the marvel
GUS turn of our luck. The boat that
had been sent ashore came back and
reported laguna OF fine fresh water
right near the beach. In the mean
time we had thrown out hooks and
lines, baited with rags, over the
side of the vessel, and to our astonish-
ment we hauled in large sized mack
erel Just as fast as we could throw our
tackle out Then we found small
Chilean barkentine at anchor inside
of us. She was loaded with -four,
frijoles, sugar, rice and other provis-
ions. The owner of the cargo-a jolly
little Frenchman-was on board, and
he let us have whatever we required.
| lost no time in getting ashore. l
found the fresh water lake, as des-
cribed. We just stripped and jumped
into that lake, and drank, and drank,
and drank. tell you it was glorious.
Talk about the famous servant of
Fortunatus who could drink hogs
head of water without taking his
breath. He couldn't have held can
die to us; for the Captain actually
prohibited us from making
frequent visits ashore, lest
we should dry up the lake, A
party from our brig started off for
the Mission of San Rosario (if my re-
collection is not at fault, that is the
name) and returned with four or five
nice fat beeves, which were killed and
their meat sent ON board to be salted
down. We were now in clover, and
lost no time in putting to sea. We
sailed due west for about week, per-
haps longer, when we struck wind
that enabled us to make a slant which